An attempt to sue the UK government over its travel traffic light scheme by the owner of Manchester Airport has been rejected in the High Court.
Manchester Airports was supported in its claim by airlines Ryanair (LON:RYA), easyJet (LON:EZJ), British Airways-owner IAG (LON:IAG), TUI UK (LON:TUI) and Virgin Atlantic.
The carriers suggested that the decisions on how to rate countries either red, amber or green were not based on data.
While some parts of the claim were upheld, the court decided that the government had not acted unlawfully and that it would not have to disclose all the information behind its country-rating decisions.
Airlines have been critical of the UK’s travel policy for months and today slammed the decision on Friday to upgrade France to quarantine status and arguing instead for more countries to be put on the green list.
easyjet shifts focus to Europe as UK travel recovery stalls
EasyJet boss Johan Lundgren described Britain’s policy today as senseless and unfair.
“The UK is being left behind, and the rest of Europe is opening up and unwinding,” he told the Evening Standard, adding that the government’s stance was unscientific and inconsistent.
“The fact that you can go into a very crowded nightclub with no face mask, no vaccination, no testing - but you can’t lie on the beach in a destination that has proven much lower cases of infection levels than the UK... That just doesn’t make sense."
Lundgren was speaking after another big quarterly loss for the airline that followed a slide in the value of travel stocks yesterday due to fears over the repercussions from a surge in Delta variant infections of Covid-19.
“If you are following the data, many more destinations in Europe should go on the green list. Unnecessary testing should not be in place because it does restrict travel for millions of passengers in a way that is unfair and not backed up by science,” added Lundgren.
EasyJet said it was seeing more bookings now in Europe than the UK now and was increasing capacity there to take advantage.